The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder
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What makes this show "fairly odder" is the fact that it is a live-action/animated Nickelodeon sitcom, which is what fans didn't expect.
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"Hey, remember that live-action Fairly OddParents spin-off that was basically just a generic Nickelodeon sitcom but with FOP characters? Yeah, me neither. Literally everyone forgot about it."
— Sir Simon A. on Twitter
The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder is an American live-action/animated television series based on Nickelodeon's The Fairly OddParents, intended as a reboot of the series. The series premiered on Paramount+ on March 31, 2022, one day after the original series' 21st anniversary.
Plot
When Timmy Turner grows up and goes to college, he leaves his childhood fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda to his younger cousin Vivian "Viv" Turner and Roy Raskin, her new stepbrother.
Why This Reboot Broke Da Rules
- The idea of rebooting The Fairly OddParents in the form of a hybrid sequel is very unnecessary, as seasons 9 and 10 already killed the original show.
- While doing a reboot of The Fairly OddParents isn't the worst idea in the world, doing so in the form of a live-action/animation hybrid sitcom that takes place in the future isn't exactly great either, since fans were hoping for an animated continuation of the series. Sound familiar?
- The humor is a big downgrade compared to the first eight seasons of the original series and probably even worse than the last two seasons of that series. Most of the humor consists of lame pop culture references, nonsensical jokes, and of course, even some toilet humor.
- There's an unfunny running gag where Roy and Viv defeat Vicky and she pretends to be dead, but then they check her body to see if she's dead, and upon that, Vicky lets out a fart, which gets old pretty fast.
- Most of the side characters, like Tootie, Poof, Sparky, Dinkleberg, Aj's Mom, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, etc. are nowhere to be seen or heard from in this series, meaning you can remove Cosmo, Wanda, and Jorgen von Strangle, replace the theme song, remove the FOP-related textures and change the names and designs of Denzel Crocker, Vicky, and Timmy, and it would look just like another generic Nickelodeon sitcom, or even a The Fairly OddParents parody series.
- Butch Hartman's art style doesn't translate very well into a live-action and animation hybrid show, as Cosmo and Wanda look like cardboard cut-outs that were simply cheaply pasted onto camera shots without trying to blend them into the scenes, hence making them stick out like sore thumbs on the live-action footage. This is best exemplified when, during a scene where the camera slightly pans over to the right after Viv wishes for a new room, Cosmo and Wanda move along with the camera instead of staying in the same place. It would have helped a bit if they were CGI animated instead, like the live-action films.
- While bringing back the original creators/producers of the original show for a reboot is usually a good sign, this one seems to be the exception, as bringing Butch Hartman back to the series was a very questionable idea, considering how much controversy he's caused over the last few years, ranging from the OAXIS scandal, and scamming Kuro to art theft via tracing, mocking Mary Kay Bergman's death (yes, really), believing that autism deserves to be cured, although it was never a disease in the first place, and so on, along with being partially responsible for the original series' downfall. Granted, most reboots, like The Powerpuff Girls (2016), Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, etc., are terrible, due to the lack of involvement of the original creators, but in this case, just like Ben 10 (2016), and even Teen Titans Go!, the reboot here is terrible, due to Butch Hartman disregarding all the stuff that made the original series good before its decline.
- The establishing shots of locations, like the school, 3D models are used, look terrible and fake-looking, as if they were taken from an early Xbox 360, Source engine game or a Grand Theft Auto mod.
- The animation in the animated segments, most notably the scene with Denzel Crocker in Fairy Jail, is a ridiculous downgrade from the original show and even the Flash-animated season 10 episodes, as it looks very low-quality, choppy, and stilted, inconsistent, and suffers from frame-rate drops. It honestly looks more like a fan animation than an actual The Fairly OddParents media. Including Jorgen not standing right and when Mr. Crocker goes to his cell, his hands magically appear on the bars instead of being animated. Another example is Timmy missing his buck teeth in a few shots during the animated intro in the first episode. Likewise, there are some clipping errors like Crocker's head clipping through the bars for example [1].
- The animated character redesigns look awful, and don't resemble their original counterparts at all, mostly notable Crocker, who, for some reason, now has two ears right in the neck, and young Timmy Turner, who as mentioned before, is missing his buck teeth.
- This is because the animation was done by Boxel Studio, a small animation and visual effects studio in Tijuana, Mexico by one person, that was forced to do it without help with very little time, which may show how cruel Butch Hartman or Paramount was with the team.
- Like the last two seasons of the original show, especially season 10, it tries too hard to be modern and hip by using popular internet trends. For example, one of the episodes has the characters using ClikClok, an obvious spoof of TikTok, and doing the floss dance. Another example is Cosmo knowing who Olivia Rodrigo is, or even about Hamilton, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
- For some reason, the theme song always appears eight to ten minutes into the episode, rather than at the beginning, which is very bizarre. Wouldn't it make more sense if the song showed up after a 1-2 minute cold opening segment (akin to ICarly, Victorious, Henry Danger and many other Nickcoms) instead of halfway through the episode?
- Just like the last two seasons of the original series. Butch Hartman and the writers also continue to ignore or abandon any continuity regarding Da Rules from the earlier seasons of the original series as they go along, showing that they didn't learn anything from the criticisms of the later seasons. For instance, Timmy is shown in the first episode to still know about his fairies' existence, yet he is all grown up by now and is supposed to have had his memories of his godparents erased.
- The worst part about this is the fact that this sequel series completely contradicts the ending of "Channel Chasers" again. Instead of following the ending of said special, where Timmy's memories were eventually erased once he became an adult, and his godparents were assigned to Timmy's son and daughter, this sequel series instead has Cosmo and Wanda assigned to Timmy's cousin and her stepbrother, which is pointless and unnecessary.
- This sitcom has some of the most horrific production values in Nickelodeon history. For example, an episode shows the public a "terrifying monster" named Codzillard, a parody of Godzilla, that attacks a cardboard city and scares people, which is a cheap knock-off of Godzilla's costume from Godzilla vs. Kong's merchandise and the claws are from the blue raptor from Jurassic World, but instead of a big and monstrous lizard-dinosaur head, they used a latex fish mask to make the head, which shows that the creators were too lazy to create a unique, and original costume for the show.
- Surprisingly, apart from being assigned as Viv and Roy's fairy godparents, and granting wishes for them, Cosmo and Wanda don't serve any significant purpose in the episodes, as they barely interact with their godkids, unlike in the original series, where they serve as parental substitutes for Timmy, due to his actual parents being neglectful. Because of that, you could replace Cosmo and Wanda with some other fictional character around, and nothing would be altered.
- Not to mention, despite showing clips from the original series' various episodes in the first episode, characters, such as Cosmo and Wanda's son, Poof, and Timmy's dog, Sparky, are neither seen nor mentioned. Again, this can be excused since this is a reboot of the series and the fact that Sparky is hated, but one of the clips seen in the montage was taken from "Wishology!", which was made long after Poof's birth.
- Similar to the modern Nickcoms, most of the acting is very mediocre. Additionally, Cosmo's high-pitched voice is still annoying to listen to, just like in seasons 9 and 10 of the original cartoon.
- Most of the new characters, both main and supporting, are bland, generic, and useless, some of which are just carbon copies of older characters from the original series. For example, Zina, Viv's best friend, is obsessed with Roy, making her a lazy clone of Tootie, who is obsessed with Timmy.
- The characters themselves aren't that great either, since Viv is just a blank slate of a character, and Roy is excruciatingly annoying. Besides, neither Viv nor Roy are seen or heard from in the original show, although this makes sense since this is a reboot and some liberties are taken concerning the original continuity.
- On the subject of Viv, Timmy's cousin, she doesn't deserve to have fairies as, similar to Chloe Carmichael, she seems to have a pretty decent life when fairy godparents are normally assigned to miserable children, and her being too nervous to move into Dimmsdale serves as a very weak excuse for her to have fairy godparents.
- For some reason, the show decided to make Vicky and Mr. Crocker a romantic couple, which is rather creepy and disgusting, as despite Vicky growing up into adulthood by the events of the series, Crocker is still 26 years older than her.
- The laugh tracks in this series are irritating and way overused even by Nickelodeon sitcom standards.
- The special effects are also terrible and fake-looking as well even by Nickelodeon TV show standards, as whenever Cosmo and/or Wanda cast a wish, an onomatopoeia-filled text box just appears, which tries to capture the aspect of the original series but fails.
- While the theme song is okay, the other soundtracks are mediocre and are also inferior to the original show just like the animation. It ranges from forgettable at best to nerve-pulling at worst.
- It doesn't help that, unlike Butch Hartman's previous works, Guy Moon is surprisingly not involved with the music at all.
- Like the last two seasons of the original series, the writing is horrible and lazy. Examples include Jorgen giving Timmy permission to show his fairies to Vivian, although it's against Da Rules otherwise; it doesn't help that this is the third time Timmy was given random privileges that allow him to break Da Rules. Another example is that Cosmo and Wanda are often off-screen being occupied with something else, just so Vivian and Roy can't unwish their wishes, and artificially extend the show's run time, which is about the same thing as them losing their wands.
- Ironically, the show won the 2023 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for favorite kids TV show, although the reboot was already critically and negatively panned by critics, fans, and audiences, which makes Nickelodeon extremely hypocritical as well.
- Sequel-baiting: Just to add further insult to the show's downgraded writing, in "Back to the Scooter", Roy even implied there will be a second season to the reboot. However, the show does not warrant a second season, due the fact that the show itself already had a lot of negative reviews, as well as getting canceled and being removed off of Paramount+. Due to all of these reasons, The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder is already bad enough to the point where it nearly killed The Fairly OddParents franchise permanently, until a CGI-animated reboot was leaked, which that reboot is a lot better than this. This also proves that the writing is even worse the last two seasons of the original show.
Magical Qualities
- Although combining animation with a live-action sitcom didn't work very well, Cosmo, Wanda, and Jorgen are animated in the same style as the original series, as opposed to the live-action movies, where they used CGI models for Cosmo and Wanda, and made Jorgen live-action, and their voice actors reprise their roles, and still do a great job voicing their characters, except for Daran Norris as Cosmo.
- On that topic, the animation for Cosmo, Wanda, and Jorgen Von Strangle is a massive improvement of the abysmal flash animation in the last thirteen episodes of season 10 of The Fairly OddParents.
- Additionally, Cosmo and Wanda's wings now actually move, and their crowns now glow, which is a surprisingly nice touch.
- Carlos Alazraqui also reprises his role as Mr. Crocker in the episodes "Fairies Away! Part 1" and "Fairies Away! Part 2" and surprisingly even plays his live-action counterpart, which is a rather nice touch, and still does a very well job voicing him, and playing him.
- There were some decent ideas hidden amongst the dirt, such as Vicky as a teacher finding out about the existence of fairies, through discovering Mr. Crocker's old room, and documenting what he found out about them, and this reminded her of the strange events, that happened, while babysitting Timmy in the original show, which sounds pretty creative, but it wasn't used to its full potential.
- The theme song can be catchy and okay.
- Timmy, Cosmo, Wanda, Jorgen, Crocker and Vicky all have been un-flanderized and restored back to their original personalities.
- Some of the acting is passable, such as Audrey Grace Marshall as Viv Turner, Ryan-James Hatanaka as Roy Raskin, Rika Ghosh as Cassidy, and Mary Kate Wiles as Vicky.
- Despite this show being completely unnecessary, it is great to see The Fairly OddParents on TV after five years.
- As mentioned above in WTRBDR #20, the CGI reboot that came out on May 20, 2024, under the name of The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish is a huge improvement over the reboot we got previously due to the new animation and art style (which are amazingly well done), "Da Rules" actually being followed and remembered, the writing and humor have significantly improved over the last two seasons of the original show and this reboot, and the music composed by Ron Jones is very superior to Guy Moon's score.
Reception
The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder was panned by critics, viewers, and fans of the original series alike, with many questioning why the show was made, as seasons 9 and 10 already tainted the original show's legacy; some fans even considered the reboot to be worse than the aforementioned last two seasons of the original series and even the live-action movies.[2] It currently holds a 2.6/10 on IMDb[3] and a 67% on Google.[4]
Trivia
- This is the only live-action/animated series to be based on a cartoon series by Butch Hartman.
- In the Latin American Spanish dub, and unlike with the original series, when the dub was made in the U.S. in Miami, Florida, this one was done with voice actors from not only Miami, but also from Mexico, Chile, and Peru.
- This is because The Kitchen Inc., the dubbing studio, since 2021 has had more collaborations with actors outside Miami.
- On January 30, 2023, it was removed from Paramount+, most likely due to the negative reception that it received.
- Another reboot came in 2023, Nickelodeon & Paramount Global applied to register The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish with the USPTO under several NICE classes. A screenwriter (Alec) from season 9 of the original series confirmed a new project was in during development in 2024.
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